“It is the interest of the numerous traders within the gold region to collect around them as many diggers as possible, and each is very naturally induced to regard favorably the diggings of his own vicinity, and takes means to spread accounts of its richness. Wonderful stories are circulated, in some instances, to increase the population at a particular spot; and when the diggers flock to it, they often find it no better than the one they left, and sometimes less productive. A very large proportion of those persons we saw in the gold region were _in transitu_; and, upon inquiry, we learned from them usually that the place they had left was unproductive, and they were bound for another which they had _heard_ was producing very largely; and on the same day, perhaps, would be seen other parties _prospecting_, as they term it, or looking for better diggings than the poor ones they had left, and in many cases just from the reported _good diggings_ the first party were going to. At some of these places you would hear of some one being very fortunate, and that they averaged per day a half ounce, one, two, or three ounces; but, like the tariff for postage, they never appear to get 1½, 2½, 3½, and so on. These accounts from particular spots sometimes find their way into California papers, and from them are copied and spread far and wide at home. Notwithstanding all this waste of time, and that nine out of ten who left their homes under erroneous expectations in reference to the facility with which the gold could be had, have been cruelly disappointed, yet the extent and number of the ravines containing gold is such that the _large number_ of diggers have, in the aggregate, produced a considerable amount of this metal. “It is impossible to ascertain the amount of labor there has been required, or, in other words, the average number who have worked at the diggings, and the number of days’ work of each. * * If we suppose only ten thousand to have worked steadily during three hundred days out of about six hundred since the digging began, and suppose each to have gained an average amount of $3 per day, the aggregate would amount to $9,000,000, being very much more than the whole amount exported in _every way_ from California up to the first December last, to all countries, Oregon inclusive. As the cost of living fully equals $3 per day, it would appear that gold-digging is not as good as laboring at home, where the laborer can save something. * * “Many of our citizens hastened to California during the past year in consequence of the numerous exaggerated, one-sided stories which were circulated in reference to the facility with which gold could be gathered. They had been told of various individuals who had collected large sums; a _few_ had done so; but the experience of the _many_, who did not pay expenses by gold-digging alone, from the nature of the case, is far less likely to be known.